When you think of dinosaurs, you probably think of the cold. Huddled, shivering T. rexes flinging shoulders of snow from their feathered backs. Playful young Brachiosaurs slip-sliding down snow-slicked hillocks. Ankylosaurs retreating beneath their armor for warmth.

Just me? OK, these pictures don’t really reflect anything from reality (except the feathers, probably). But the incongruous imagery is part of what caught my interest about the latest “A Scientist Walks into a Bar” pub-science event: “Fossil Hunting in Antarctica.”

Also, just, dinosaurs in general. Those dudes work pretty well in getting an audience for one of these public-science events. Yesterday’s edition of the (roughly) monthly science conversation at Chicago’s The Hideout, put on by the Field Museum, happened to come one day after the 25th anniversary of a little-known auteur film by the name of “Jurassic Park.” That’s not why they chose this topic, I don’t think. (The movie didn’t come up — not even a single “Life, uh-uh-uh-uh, finds a way” reference.)

Rather, the Field has its own big dinosaur news: The museum has a new exhibit opening on Antarctic dinos. (And, quite literally speaking, that’s not the even the biggest recent dinosaur news from the Field, which just brought the Titanosaur Maximo into the main hall, taking Sue the T. rex’s place.) So, yesterday’s science talk brought Field Museum Chief Fossil Preparator Akiko Shinya to share about her experience digging for dinos on the frozen continent.

Due to stubborn things like the passage of hundreds of millions of years, my vision of snowboarding dinosaurs never actually occurred. As the event’s description said, “Antarctica was once a lush, temperate land crawling with dinosaurs and other creatures.” That’s back before the planet’s land masses broke up to pursue individual projects. So, the dinosaur hunting on Antarctica seeks not cold-weather variants but rather, as  Shinya said, to test the hypothesis that the area shared species with what would have been nearby places, like Argentina.

In fact, Shinya’s discussion with the “A Scientist Walks into a Bar” host Kate Golembiewski dwelt surprisingly little on the actual dinosaurs. Shinya said her paleontology in Antarctica focused on a smaller species of dinosaur, whose name I forget. This seemed of not that much interest to the host, and probably to the audience — because, well, people like BIG dinosaurs, after all.

Instead, the conversation kept returning to the logistics and the experience of traveling to Antarctica. Here, there were some surprises. For instance, you get a lot to eat, and the food sounded pretty decent. Because of the permafrost environment, Antarctic expeditions can keep tons of frozen food on hand, including lots of frozen vegetables — and ice cream. Shinya said the big meals of roast beef, for example, followed by no less than five varieties of ice cream put 10 extra pounds on her frame. That was a surprise, she said, as she’s used to fossil hunting in arid deserts and emerging lean and fit after lugging heavy bones and equipment in her backpack. (On Antarctica, by contrast, you have to travel by helicopter.)

Shinya also presented a remarkably vivid image of what the Antarctic landscape looks and feels like. With no trees, and certainly no human-made structures, to break up the view, and in the crystal-clear, non-polluted air, you can see for 60 miles — 60 miles in a circle of pure, flat white landscape. And without trees, you can’t generally see when the wind is blowing: Everything’s still. It sounded stunning, perhaps overwhelming at times.

At least one pretty interesting detail about dinosaur hunting itself did come out of the discussion. Namely, how do Shinya and other paleontologists go about finding dinosaur remains? Basically, they just wander around sites known to have fossils and hope to come across something sticking out of the ground. That remains the main method. It’s kind of charming to think that paleontology still operates like that.

I did, however, wonder about how many fossils remain buried because nothing sticks up above the surface. Couldn’t they check for those using ground-penetrating radar or something like that? As you’ll no doubt remember, the aforementioned “Jurassic Park” featured something like this at the beginning, pissing off the technology-averse Alan Grant. I suppose the answer is that paleontologist research teams, generally, don’t have the money for that sort of thing.

I could have asked about that during the Q&A session, I suppose, but tons of people had questions, mostly about the expedition’s logistics. To be fair, those were pretty interesting. Shinya shared about the guides, a hyper-interesting breed of people (a la “The Most Interesting Man in the World”) who do things like guide mountain-climbing expeditions. One man, at 70 years old, has been leading Antarctic scientists for years. His responsibility is to make sure the researchers get where they’re going safely, Shinya said. I instantly felt painfully dull and un-masculine compared to this guy.

In large part, this focus on the expedition resulted from how host Golembiewski runs these events. They are, as I remember the first edition’s scientist saying, supposed to literally be like running into a scientist at the bar. It’s unstructured; you’re just shooting the shit with an interesting person. So, the discussion just goes where it goes. Sometimes that works well. Golembiewski is a funny and energetic host, and when paired with an energetic scientist who’s willing to take charge of the conversation, the shoot-the-shit approach works (as the first edition of this series did).

Last night, unfortunately, it seemed like Golembiewski and Shinya ran out of things to talk about. Golembiewski, towards the end, kept checking the time left and allowed some dead air as she tried to think of questions to ask. I was reminded of that old SNL skit where Will Ferrell runs out a bad date by saying, “Let’s see, let’s see … what else … what else can I ask you…” It’s not the best.

I bet Shinya had plenty of interesting things to say, though, and not just about what Antarctic expeditions are like — I’d imagine most practicing scientists do. A little more structure and preparation for the event would help make sure that the scientist’s science factoids come out (an outline of the main questions and science topics they want to cover, a pre-interview for practice, etc.). But I guess that’s not how they want to run this. Still, I’ll likely be at the next one. I’d say this is the weakest of this series I’ve seen, but it was still entertaining. I could have learned more about the actual science in this scientist’s work, though.